


Wolf Steals a Horse

by gardnerhill



Series: Tales From Wind-Goes-Through-It Lodge [5]
Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Episode: s01e04 They Eat Horses Don't They?, Episode: s01e05 Pizzas and Promises, Episode: s01e07 Witness, Folklore, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 21:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: "Wolf Steals a Horse" is a faux-folktale cobbled together very loosely from the due South episodes "They Eat Horses, Don't They?" "Pizzas & Promises" and "Witness."





	Wolf Steals a Horse

Wolf lives with his clan-brother, Old Man Coyote, in the land of the south, in the great lodge by the lake Wind-Goes-Through-It. Wolf is a good hunter, a brave warrior, stout-hearted and honest and straightforward; it was the stony hearts of his fellow wolves that exiled him from the northern land of snow, and the kind heart of his slipshod trickster cousin that gave him a new place to live. It is inconceivable that Wolf could do anything dishonest or underhanded. And yet there was a time when Wolf actually performed the worst and most despicable act known in the great plains -- horse-stealing.

It was once told!

There were many people that lived in Wind-Goes-Through-It, the giant lodge at the edge of the great lake of the south. Wind-Goes-Through-It was so big that it took three days of travel on foot before you reached the doorflap from the time you first saw the lodge near the lake's edge; it was so big that Wind himself was the chief, blowing constantly through that lodge, unseen but felt and heard by everyone. Many animal-people lived there and hunted there, many living out their whole lives without ever leaving the lodge; a great river flowed through the middle where people fished, and wide plains stretched beyond the dens and burrows of the people there where their ponies ran wild.

In those days animals lived and spoke with each other the way human beings do, and they were like human beings in many ways. Some were good, some were wicked; some were strong and clever, some were stupid and weak. But while Coyote was content to let the weak be weak and the wicked be wicked as long as he had a full belly, Wolf would not turn a blind eye to the cruelties and injustices that lived among people in the lodge; his warrior's heart demanded that he protect the weak and punish the wicked. And because he lived in Coyote's den, he often enlisted the reluctant help of his cousin.

As Wolf and Coyote were returning to their den one early winter's morning with their full game-bags, they saw and heard a great commotion at Skunk's burrow. Many animals were there, shouting angrily, and Wind whirled around the mob, brisk and angry.

Coyote laughed and wrinkled his nose. "Hey, clan-brother, maybe old Stink-tail farted in the chief's bed this time!"

Wolf said nothing. Skunk was not clever or popular -- he breaks wind all the time, so he has no friends. But Skunk was good-natured and cheerful, and hurt nothing but the frogs and fish he gathered for his wife and kits. "Let us see what this commotion is about, brother Coyote."

Coyote yawned hugely. "Wolf, I have been up all night with you in the snow, checking our traps and lying in wait for game. When we get into the den, we will have no rest until we feed all our brats, my lazy littermates, my mother and my bitch of a wife. Surely there is nothing going on at Skunk's den that will not wait until we've eaten and slept ourselves!"

"I think not, clan-brother," Wolf said politely but firmly. "Listen to the people. They sound like a pack of wolves closing in on a wounded caribou. They want blood."

"You hear too many things," Coyote growled, but his own ears twitched uneasily. The pack of people were indeed making an ugly sound, one that made him very glad he was not Skunk. "All right, let's go see what the whining is about and then we'll go home."

There was a lot of shouting, accusations, angry growls, and a few scattered, feeble pleas as the two den-mates pushed their way through the crowd. When Wolf's polite requests for passage were ignored, Coyote simply shouldered his way through the crowd, snapping and snarling, cutting a path for the two of them. At the center of the storm was a terrified-looking Skunk surrounded by his equally frightened wife and kittens. Facing the skunks were Weasel, sleek and handsome in his brown pelt, and his darker-pelted clan-brother Mink. All the other animals were clustered close around, listening and talking.

"For weeks many of us have had ponies disappear," Weasel snapped, and many animals agreed with shouts. "Now my clan-brother and I have lost two of our finest ponies!"

"One does not like to accuse anyone of horse-stealing," Mink said in a smooth whisper, his dark eyes cold. "That carries such a terrible penalty that one hates the very thought of accusing our good neighbors of such an evil thing."

"And today, when my cousin and I returned from our fruitless search for our beasts," Weasel shouted, "we find hoofprints and horse-droppings in the snow outside Skunk's burrow! Skunk, who is so poor and low that he owns not one pony of his own!"

"Such a shame," Mink whispered sibilantly, a look of sorrow on his handsome face. "Such a bitter revelation."

"I have no p-ponies!" Skunk cried. "None at all! You have all b-been through my burrow and s-seen that I have n-no ponies with me!" Skunk- woman and the kits huddled together; the youngest kits were crying at the angry sounds surrounding them.

"Then explain the horse-dung outside your very burrow, Stink-tail!" Weasel shouted. "Perhaps you got careless and forgot to remove the evidence this time! Your own foul stench would certainly cover up dung smell from previous thefts!"

"I...I don't know why there was d-d-dung near my burrow," Skunk whispered. "M-maybe a pony walked by and left it, or s-someone put it there." The other animals grumbled in disbelief; that stammered explanation did not sound very convincing, especially since Skunk's burrow was nowhere near the common grasslands where the ponies wandered.

"It is true that the ponies have not been seen since their disappearances," Mink murmured. "Who is to say that Skunk has not been making himself rich? Who is to say that Skunk has not been selling our good ponies to people outside the lodge, and hiding his wealth?" Other animals, who had lost ponies, snarled and agreed.

Coyote's ears flattened; Wolf's hackles and tail rose. "Brother Wolf," Coyote whispered, "this accusation stinks worse than poor old Stripe- tail does."

Wolf growled very low in agreement. Weasel and Mink were wealthy, respected lodge members -- and both were as clever as their clan- brother Wolverine, a wicked creature who had once tried to destroy Wolf and Coyote. "It is wrong of them to accuse Skunk in their anger at their loss, without proof that he is indeed the horse-stealer. If everyone becomes convinced of Skunk's guilt, they will drive him and his family away from the lodge and its protection, in the middle of winter, until he has made reparation for the lost horses."

Coyote laughed sadly. "Cousin, that would happen to Skunk in your snow-country. Here in the south, horse-stealers are so hated that when they are accused and found guilty, they are put to a slow and painful death, their belongings are divided among the accusers, and their families are sold into slavery."

Wolf's ears went flat on his skull and his lip curled over his teeth. He was appalled at the thought of a possibly innocent person and his family destroyed by such a brutal and final punishment. Coyote's yellow eyes glared at the smooth handsome pair of accusers. "Skunk has no friends to speak for him. He is certainly not clever enough to defend himself against those two. And Wind, that big fart, is letting this happen!" He shook his head in despair. "Ai ai ai, cousin, why didn't you let us go right to our den instead of seeing this?"

"Brave hunter Weasel," Wolf said clearly into the din of angry voices, "where is your proof that Skunk took any ponies?"

"Horses leave dung, snow-eater," Weasel said contemptuously. "At least they do in Wind-Goes-Through-It. Do they leave snowballs where you come from?" The other beasts laughed a little. "This stupid stink- tail forgot to remove the dung traces this time!" There were indeed very clear and deep hoofprints around the burrow, and a fresh pile of horse manure.

"A smart horse-stealer wouldn't leave any traces, ever," Coyote drawled. "Especially not right at his own door. And a stupid stealer would have left traces from the very first stolen pony. Why is it that only *your* ponies left traces, cousins of Wolverine?" Some of the other animals quieted; a small murmur of agreement stole over the angry mutterings.

Weasel and Mink stared in silence at Wolf and Coyote, but their eyes glittered.

Weasel grinned, showing all his sharp teeth. "Everyone knows you, Coyote. Are we to believe a liar and a thief defending his own kind?"

"I, too, believe Skunk is unfairly accused, brave hunter Weasel," Wolf said politely. "Do you call me a liar and a thief?" The other animals murmured; Wolf had not been in Wind-Goes-Through-It a year -- but all knew him to be a brave, sober hunter who did not lie or do anything unmindfully.

"You are Coyote's clan-brother," purred Mink. "You live in Coyote's den. Even a clean, brave Wolf will pick up fleas if he lives with dirty people."

Coyote laughed and Wolf yawned in his accusers' faces; both were very angry.

But Skunk, seeing his only two defenders, threw himself at the cousins' feet. "Brave hunter W-Wolf, c-clever Coyote!" he sobbed. "I am innocent, I d-didn't take the p-ponies! For my children, my w-wife, I b-b-beg you help m-me!"

Coyote's nose wrinkled and his teeth bared at the stink -- the unfortunate creature had broken wind once again --but he did not move away. He looked at Skunk-woman wailing in terror, surrounded by her sobbing, farting kits. "Ai ai ai, cousin," he sighed. "You will make a Wolf of me yet."

"Enough of Skunk's pathetic lying," growled Weasel. "No horse-stealers must live!"

"Let justice be done at once, before one of our good neighbors loses another fine horse," Mink said sibilantly.

A mob of angry people began to close in on Skunk from behind. Wolf growled and crouched, preparing to spring and fight to the death if he had to; a wild wind blew through his hackled fur and upraised tail.

"Father Wind, Mighty Chief!" a voice called in a respectful tone. "I beg humble leave to speak in your powerful presence!"

The murderous mob froze in shock. It was Coyote who had spoken so respectfully and humbly.

The wind whipped around Coyote once, then died down. Everyone stared at the yellow-eyed trickster in disbelief. "Well chew me, it worked," Coyote muttered; Wolf looked on, his heart nearly bursting with pride at his cousin. Aloud Coyote said, "Father Wind, my cousin Wolf and I believe Skunk to be innocent of this evil accusation. I beg you to give us time to find the missing ponies, or to discover where they have gone."

"Wind, mighty chief," Wolf added in his usual respectful tone, "I beg you to give my clan-brother and myself time to learn the truth. If Skunk is found guilty, there will be time to kill him. But if he is innocent, it would be wrong to kill him so quickly."

Wind whirled around the mob of people, making a mournful "Hoooo... hoooo..." sound, like an owl. Three times Wind hooted like an owl, then died down and was silent.

"Wind has spoken," said Vulture, Wind's cousin, and she looked at Skunk in disappointment. "Nothing may be done for three nights." She flew away.

"Three nights," Weasel snapped, "and only three nights!"

"It is three nights too many for this thief to live," Mink said smoothly.

Coyote yawned wide, curling his tongue. "Eh, three nights and Skunk goes back to his family as blameless as he is now. As for the real thief, eh?" He closed his jaws with a snap.

Wolf looked at the angry people. Even Wind's pronouncement did not quiet their desire for revenge on an accused horse-stealer. And he had not missed the disappointed look ever-hungry Vulture had given to Skunk. He looked at the frightened kits, the weeping Skunk-woman and her terrified mate. "Perhaps these people would like to spend those three nights in our den, cousin. Surely a family of skunks cannot be as foul-smelling as your brother." Wolf headed for the Coyote den, his back deliberately turned on the mob to display his contempt for them.

Coyote wrinkled his nose at the thought, but he chuckled. "Heh, I think maybe you're right. Come on, you brats. And watch out for my brother, Skunk-woman -- he smells almost as bad as your husband. Don't fuck him by mistake some dark night and make Coyote-skunks!" But for all his careless words Coyote kept himself between the angry animals and the family of frightened skunks, and he turned his back on everyone as deliberately and contemptuously as did his northern cousin.

Wolf and Coyote herded the Skunk family through the morning snow to their own crowded, noisy den. There the skunks took up residence here and there in niches too small for the adult coyotes and older pups to inhabit; their constant windbreaking soon had the Coyote den smelling like a skunk burrow, and everyone complained bitterly. Coyote jovially told his family that they were welcome to eat the little skunks if they objected to the smell that much; as everyone knew skunks tasted worse than they smelled, they kept themselves to grumbling.

"Ya hey, in three days it won't matter, cousin," Coyote muttered crossly as he and Wolf left the den; he was hungry and tired and did not want to go out again. "Skunk will be dead and his family scattered, or they will all go back to their burrow."

"Let us go back to their burrow now, and see what we find," Wolf replied.

Skunk's burrow had been deserted by the mob, now that everyone knew that the accused family was under the protection of a lot of bad- tempered and sharp-toothed Coyotes. It reeked as badly as if it were still full of skunks, and both Coyote and Wolf shook their heads and bared their teeth in distaste. The snow all around the burrow was completely trampled and the horse dung scattered.

Scrawny Coyote could just worm his way into the small home. He saw Skunk's fine fish-traps and nets and neatly-kept weapons, and Skunk- woman's loom and the beautifully embroidered garments she made for her family, her collection of pottery and metal cooking pots, well-made moccasins, well-woven baskets -- even cunningly-made toys for the children. "Heh, if this family is killed Weasel and Mink will divide some good things," Coyote called. "How is it outside?"

Wolf growled in frustration from where he had been smelling all around the outside of the burrow. The mob had ruined the evidence. "Too many people have been here. All the smells and tracks are tangled together now."

Coyote crawled backward out of the tiny burrow and shook the dirt from his coat. "Well, that dung's given me an idea," he said, and he arched his back and shit. When he was done, he turned and faced the five turds he had produced. "Siblings, people's ponies are disappearing. There is a horse-stealer among us. How do we find this person?"

"A thief knows a thief," squeaked one turd. "You are a mighty thief, Elder Brother," whispered another turd. "Steal big, hide big," growled another turd. "Steal a horse to think like a horse-stealer," hissed another turd. "Horses find each other," whined the fifth turd, and Coyote kicked the droppings apart.

Wolf, who had watched the exchange with the fascination he always felt for a display of his trickster cousin's belly-magic, was now sick with realization at what had been revealed. "Steal a ..." he whispered, appalled.

"Steal a horse and we find where the other ponies have gone," Coyote said, shrugging and lolling his tongue in a wicked grin. "Cousin, you knew I was a thief from the time I took that big salmon away from you when you were fishing outside the lodge."

"But a _horse_ ," whispered Wolf, too shamed to say it out loud. "If we are caught -- "

"Would I, Old Man Coyote, Trickster Coyote, Coyote-Who-Changes-Things, make a mistake like that?" Coyote said indignantly.

"How often have I had to step over your dead body five times?" Wolf snapped.

"All right, so there's a risk," Coyote said, shrugging his scrawny shoulders. "You insisted on seeing what the commotion was outside Skunk's burrow. So we steal a horse and find a horse-stealer."

"Cousin, I _can't_ steal," Wolf said. "I've never taken so much as a handful of parched corn or a strip of rotten rawhide from anyone. I don't know how to steal."

"Then watch for me while I do the stealing. You can watch well, I know that." Without another word Coyote headed out to the grasslands in the middle of Wind-Goes-Through-It where everyone kept their ponies. Unhappy, Wolf followed his reckless cousin.

There were a good many ponies on the wind-swept land, pawing through the thin snow for the grass and rolling in the banks. "Ha, that one," Coyote said as a fine spotted stallion trotted near.

Wolf recognized the mark braided into the lower mane, and knew whose pony it was. "Clan-brother, find another one, this one belongs to Eagle!"

"A good pony, then, the best!" And Coyote leaped on the stallion's back. "Ya ya ya!" he shouted, kicking the pony's sides.

Wolf heard Eagle scream before he could shout a warning, and in the next moment a thunderbolt fell from the daytime sky. Coyote yelped. The pony whinnied and galloped away, riderless. Eagle flew back to his nest at the top of the highest cliff in the lodge, holding Coyote in his talons. Wolf stared up at the cliff, stunned by the speed at which everything had changed. To climb that cliff would take a day; to come back down, another day. If he went after his cousin there would be only one day to find the thief and save Skunk. "Oh, dear," said Wolf.

"Oh, Wolf!" someone said behind him.

Wolf turned around, startled that he'd been caught off-guard.

White-tail stood near the edge of the grassland, pawing the ground and flicking her ears in fear. She thought Wolf had called her.

Wolf recovered quickly. "Sister Deer," he said courteously, for Deer was Caribou's cousin and the clans of Caribou and Wolf were very close to each other. "Yours are the ears that hear in Wind-Goes-Through-It, and you eat grass in the meadow. I am trying to find the wicked person who has been stealing ponies from the people here. Have you heard anything?"

White-tail shook and her eyes bulged in fear at being so close to an eater of deer, but she knew Wolf was an honorable hunter who only killed and ate the sick, weak and lame in her family; she was able to stay in place and talk. "Enemies," she whispered. "I hear enemies."

Yours is the nose that learns who is near in Wind-Goes-Through-It, sister Deer. Have you smelled anything?"

White-tail shook harder, her eyes almost starting from her head in terror. "I smell a stink! The stink of fear, of an enemy!"

"Yours are the eyes that see in Wind-Goes-Through-It, sister Deer. Have you seen anything?"

White-tail trembled harder with fear. "I see nothing. Nothing on the grasslands, by night or by day." She bolted, unable to stay in Wolf's presence any more.

Wolf sat and thought for a time after White-tail left. She had heard and smelled an enemy that had made her afraid, but had not seen it, by night or by day.

Wolf now knew that Skunk was blameless; White-tail had mentioned a stink, a terrible smell, but she called it a stink of fear; White-tail was not afraid of Skunk, who ate only fish and frogs. And she would have identified Skunk's particular odor at once.

He had to find where the other ponies had gone -- perhaps that way he would also learn the identity of the thief. He decided that he would indeed have to steal a horse to find the truth. "Aya, cousin," Wolf said wryly, shaking his head at the thought of what he was about to do. "You will make a Coyote of me yet."

So Wolf started looking high and low through Wind-Goes-Through-It, looking for a pony to steal.

He started at the snow-dusted meadow, full of fine fat ponies grazing and switching their tails, or rolling in the snowbanks. The ponies' owners -- conscientious hunters and cheerful people -- called out to Wolf in friendly voices, recognizing Coyote's sober, brave cousin. Wolf couldn't bring himself to take one of those ponies.

So Wolf wandered through Wind-Goes-Through-It looking for other horses to steal, whose loss would not grieve their owners. Here and there, in rocky areas, he saw sullen starve-ribbed ponies chewing lichens in an ill-humor, switching their draggled, burr-clotted tails over their bony rumps. Their owners were low, shabby people, but they greeted Wolf with politeness and respect for his prowess as a hunter and warrior. Their ponies were poor things, but they were all these low people had.

So Wolf kept looking for horses to steal, whose loss would not grieve their owners and whose owners were not worthy of consideration.

Toward the end of the third day, in a flea-ridden sand-pit, Wolf found a yellow-and-brown mare lying there, so old and bony and lamed that she could not stand up. Her hooves were split and splayed, her tendons sprung and ruined, her tail all but gone and a dreadful mange over the parts of her body that were not riddled with sores. She had only three long teeth left in her mouth -- but even then she snapped and bit at Wolf as he approached her, as evil-tempered a nag as she was sick and ugly.

"Who owns you, Sister Mare?" Wolf asked politely.

"No one owns me!" Nag snapped, and lashed out at Wolf with her split hind hooves. "My last owner beat me and drove me away for kicking his children! I belong to no one!"

Wolf smiled. He had finally found a perfect horse to steal. "Please come with me, Sister."

That scrawny pony was still very heavy, and hard for Wolf to manage. Nag kicked and bit Wolf a good deal, and Wolf would have been forgiven many times over for breaking her spine with one bite. But he persisted, and finally dragged her out of the sand-pit by her wispy tail. "Where must I hide this mare?" he wondered, and ducked as a big split hoof whizzed over his head.

"Don't take me where the other ponies go!" Nag snapped. "I bite the other ponies whenever I can! I hate those others, and they hate me!"

"Not to the meadow?" Wolf asked.

"Don't take me to the meadow!"

"The cave of Coyote, perhaps?"

"If there are no ponies, I can stay there," snapped old Nag. "Dirty coyotes are better than those shit-tails on the meadow!"

Wolf was not sly or tricky like his cousin -- but he had just gotten an idea that felt much like Coyote's clever schemes. It felt good. Perhaps he _was_ starting to learn trickery from his clan-brother. "What would be another good place to go, Sister?" he asked as he walked slowly back toward Eagle's cliff, carrying most of that mare's heavy weight as she leaned against him. "A place to go with no ponies? I know the meadow is full of them. Do you know anyplace else we should avoid?"

Nag limped along, kicking and snapping at Wolf. "That den," she mumbled.

"Which den, Sister?"

"Weasel's den!" snapped the old mare. "Ponies go there too!"

Just then Wolf heard Coyote shout his name. "Thank you kindly, Sister," he said, and ran toward the cliff, leaving her to collapse onto the ground near the cliff's outcropping

***

Meanwhile Coyote had been having having a bad time of it. When Eagle was not out flying or hunting, he was at his nest punishing the horse-stealer by beating at Coyote with his great wings and tearing at him with his beak; Coyote had spent the last three days yelping and running in circles around the huge nest as tufts of his dusty gray fur scattered down the cliffside. But during the first attack he had seen a clump of white hairs stuck in Eagle's talons that did not come from him.

Coyote thought about that white fur, and during one beating session he managed to snatch it away from Eagle's claw. When he was alone he looked at it. It was a short tuft of fine soft white fur, very short -- not at all like the longer white belly-fur so many animals had. Winter was just beginning in the lodge, but so far none of the changing animals had put on their white winter coats. It was possible that it had come from Skunk's white tail-stripe.

"Owl's cousin, have you been catching rabbits?" Coyote sneered.

Eagle screeched in rage at the insult -- Owl-woman is a cruel witch who steals children and eats their hearts -- and struck Coyote again. "Ha! Dung-eater, this is not the first time you tried to steal from me! You woke me four nights ago when your activity frightened my ponies. I didn't see you then, but I struck you when I flew down to stop the thief! You got away then without my seeing you in the night, but I have you now!"

"Did you smell anything that night, son of Chickadee?" he taunted the mighty chief of birds. "Your ponies farting, maybe?"

Eagle struck Coyote again. "I smell a dirty Coyote now! And I smelled how frightened you'd made my ponies that night!"

Coyote cackled at the revelation. Eagle hadn't smelled Skunk -- whoever had been struck that night while taking horses was not the poor stripe-tail. "Thank you kindly, Magpie's brother," he said cheekily, and leaped out of the nest. "Wolf!" he shouted as he fell down the cliff, toward the river below.

***

Wolf ran fast and hard across the grassland, watching as Coyote tumbled in the air all the way down to the river, where he landed with a mighty splash. He plunged into the bitter water, his teeth chattering with cold; already the nearby rocks were forming needles of ice where river- water splashed them. He swam and swam to where Coyote floated and bobbed in the river like trash after a flood, and was battered by rocks and tumbled beneath the icy water many times before he finally caught his cousin by the tail. He swam for shore and dragged him out. Coyote was limp and dead, either from that terrible fall down the highest cliff in Wind-Goes-Through-It, or from drowning.

"Aya, cousin," Wolf said, shaking his head. Then he stepped over Coyote's wet bedraggled corpse five times.

Coyote sat up and coughed out a lot of water, shaking his coat. "Ai ai ai, that Eagle has a temper, he clawed out half the fur from my belly!" He scratched his left ear hard, dislodging a surprised fish. "Well, clan-brother, what gift would you like this time?"

"I have enough gifts from you, Coyote." Wolf snapped up the fish and gobbled it down; the three days' hunting, and this bout of running and swimming, had made him very hungry. "How many times have I brought you back to life?"

"Still, I must give a gift to everyone who brings me back to life, for I am Coyote-Who-Changes-Things."

Wolf thought for a while while Coyote coughed the water out of his lungs. "Very well, cousin. You know I am a warrior, sworn to keep myself away from women. But your sister Coyote-bitch has been trying to get me to mate her, and it is hard to sleep at night with her persistence. She even licked my penis when I was wounded by Bear; I was too weak to stop her. I would be grateful if you could make her stop pestering me."

"Done," Coyote growled. "If she tries to make you mate her again, I shall beat her. She can have pups with anyone else in Wind-Goes- Through-It, for all I care!"

And from that day to this, close as they are to each other, wolves and coyotes do not mate. Coyote-bitch later ran off with Dog and bore his pups, and that is why all dogs have Coyote's gift for stealing.

"Son of Butterfly," Wolf said fondly as Coyote staggered to his feet, both of them shaking the last of the water out of their coats. "Who else would try to steal Eagle's pony, in broad daylight?"

"Someone who cannot be seen in broad daylight," Coyote growled. "Someone in his winter coat." He pulled the tuft of white fur from inside his nose, where he'd hidden it before jumping to his death, and showed it to his cousin.

Wolf sniffed the fur, and shook his head. "It smells like your nose." But there were other smells mentioned... "White-tail said she'd smelled a stink of fear on the grassland," he said. "And the horse..."

"Horse?" Coyote said cheekily. "Clan-brother, did you actually steal a horse?"

Wolf shushed him, looking around anxiously. "The...the mare I -- spoke to is over here." He led Coyote across the grassland to the rocky outcropping, and around. "Here," he whispered.

When Coyote saw Nag, still lying in a heap against the overhang where Wolf had left her, he fell down, yelping with laughter and rolling on the ground. " _This_ is the horse you stole," he gasped, "this bag of horse-shit with a tail?" He ducked just in time to avoid a kick from Nag's hoof.

"Please, cousin," Wolf said, distressed. "It is wicked enough that I have stolen a horse. I don't wish to have my deed known." He tucked his tail between his hind legs, fast, just before Nag's long yellow teeth clashed shut where it had been a second ago.

"Son of Eagle," Coyote said, still chuckling, "if you proclaimed this deed across Wind-Goes-Through-It, the one who owned this split-hoof would give you his daughter, his rifle and fifty blankets to thank you for the theft." Nag snapped her ugly yellow teeth at Coyote, and Coyote bared his own yellow teeth at her, wrinkling his nose in mirth.

Wolf recalled his words to the nasty old mare. "Sister, are you sure you do not want to go to Weasel's den?"

"Not there!" Nag snapped. "I have seen too many ponies go there!"

"Weasel's den, you say?" Coyote said lazily, but a yellow glow lit his eyes. "Weasel has many fine ponies. Perhaps he has very, very many fine ponies -- many more than he has told us about. Perhaps we should visit this splendid herd, cousin, and compliment our friend on his wealth."

"Perhaps that is what I was thinking myself, my brother," Wolf said in a straightforward manner; but a gleam was in his own Coyote-yellow eyes. To Nag Wolf said, "You have been very helpful to us. As a reward, I will not kill and eat you, lame and sick though you are and hungry though I am."

Nag whickered in an ugly manner, and kicked out at Wolf again. "You do me no favors, shit-eating Dog's-cousin!"

"I'll do you a favor, Sister Fleas," Coyote said cheerily. "Take my advice. Don't even think of kicking this rock-spur."

"I'll kick it if I like!" snapped Nag, and did just that. With the rock-spur gone, most of the overhanging stone fell in one great rush on top of the old mare, crushing and killing her at once.

"There, cousin!" Coyote laughed and bit Wolf's ear in his rough affectionate manner. "A better death than the one she would have had where you found her. Neither of us killed her, and we'll both have our first real meal in three days."

Wolf shook his head at his cousin's often-cruel tricks. But he couldn't deny the truth of what he said; Nag might have lain in that sand-pit until she starved to death. So he settled beside his clan- brother and both ate till they were full. Leaving the rest of the dead mare for their clan-brother Fox (who had once brought Coyote back to life and had been promised Coyote's carrion), Wolf and Coyote headed for Weasel's den, by a roundabout way.

It was nearly dark when they came close to Weasel's den. Both waited in hiding until they saw Weasel appear at the doorway of his den and whistle for his cousin Mink. Weasel was in his everyday brown coat, but over his arm was his pure white winter coat, which he put on. Out came Mink, carrying his own white winter coat, and put it on. Robed in white, the clan-brothers went out onto the snow-covered grasslands, and amid all that white they vanished from sight.

"Ya ya ya yaaaaaa!" Wolf howled his war cry, and leaped after the two figures.

"Ai ai ai ai ai ai!" Coyote yipped, and ran -- into the den.

Weasel and Mink were clan-brothers of Wolverine, as sly and cruel as their gluttonous cousin. They could wriggle their way into nearly any den and burrow to root out their game, could shinny up the tallest tree or the steepest rock outcropping, and killed without mercy. Both were now out of sight, unable to be seen.

But Wolf's nose was sharper than Eagle's eyes. He bounded over the snow, following the unerring trail left by the thief, and in less time than it takes to tell he had Weasel pinned under his forepaws. He could smell the invisible Mink scurrying away. "Cousin!" he shouted.

Coyote was not as fast as Wolf, not as good a tracker as his cousin, did not have as sharp a nose, and was not as good a hunter. But he did one thing much better than his cousin did, and that was to think of new ways of doing things. He ran into Weasel's den. In the middle of the floor was a great flat stone that smelled of ponies. "Oh, ho," Coyote said with a laugh, recognizing the pit-trap in which a selfish chief had once kept all the buffalo in the world. "So I must free the buffalo all over again!" Coyote pried up the stone and yelped loudly down the hole.

All the frightened ponies hiding in that hole, all the ponies that had been stolen, panicked at that sound and leaped out, whinnying and kicking, tossing their heads as they thundered out of Weasel's den. They headed straight for the grasslands -- and Wolf and Weasel were directly in their way.

Wolf shouted and leaped aside, and so did Weasel. But Weasel was not fast enough -- he squealed in pain as one mare stepped on the very tip of his tail. Mink got much worse than this -- he didn't get out of the way fast enough, and the ponies couldn't see him. They trampled right over him, and it was all the battered Mink could do to find a rock and burrow hard behind it while the ponies ran over and around him.

At the other end of the grasslands, as the other animals gathered at the Coyote den prepared to drag out the frightened Skunk and his family, a shout went up as the missing ponies came running over the meadow and back to their owners. Not long afterwards, Wolf and Coyote came trotting after the ponies with their prisoners -- Weasel whimpering over his trodden-on tail, and Mink all covered with blood from his trampling. "Here are your horse-stealers!" Coyote shouted, shaking the moaning Mink.

When the other creatures learned what had happened, they were so full of rage that they wanted to put both animals to death at once.

Coyote laughed. "Eh, it's not needed. Look at them! I don't think they'll be so invisible any more!"

Coyote was right. Weasel had been very proud of his pure white coat that had blended in so perfectly with the snow -- but now the very tip of his tail was black, where the mare had stepped on it. Weasel's tail-tip has stayed black to this day; he can no longer hide completely from his pursuers. As for Mink, his own white coat was now as brown as his summer coat from the dried blood on it, and it never came off. Mink can no longer change to a white winter coat and hide in the snow.

"Horse-stealers," Wolf snarled at the two cowering thieves. "Cowards! Liars! You would have let an innocent family be destroyed to hide your own evil! As you have hunted others, let yourselves be hunted!"

Wolf's curse came true too. Weasel's black-tipped white winter pelt, and Mink's glossy brown pelt, are both greatly prized for decorations; both animals are relentlessly hunted by fur-trappers.

Weasel's righteous anger and Mink's glib words had deserted them. When they were released, they scurried like rats back to their den, pursued by the jeers and derision of everyone in Wind-Goes-Through-It. It was a long, long time before either animal was seen again.

"Well done, clan-brother," Coyote said wearily, and both he and Wolf headed to their den. "Now let's send those fart-tails home so we can get some rest!"

But they found out that things hadn't gone very well at home while they'd been away. _Aya_! The little Skunks had been playing with Coyote's and Wolf's pups in the three days, and they had almost grown to be friends with each other. But one of the skunk-kits had cheated disgracefully during a game, and had gotten the pups angry. They had fought bitterly, and when the skunks left Coyote's den both sides parted on bad terms, each vowing revenge on the other. That war between dog-people and skunks is still going on, to this very day.


End file.
